


AKA life during wartime

by fayevsessays



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 09:15:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5285165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayevsessays/pseuds/fayevsessays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica deals with the pressures of her new found popularity as a non-caped crusader while Trish, crossing a line into IGH’s files, tries to figure out what they had to do with Jessica’s past. But her search and Alias Investigations might put their relationship to the test.</p>
            </blockquote>





	AKA life during wartime

*

Jessica stares at Trish from her desk.  Mostly because she can see her from her desk thanks to the big hole in the door where her window used to be. Yet, Trish still knocks.

 

“Who is it?”

“I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.” Trish waits for a second, still not letting herself in, and holds up a bag. “I brought food.”

Jessica leans back in her chair. “Malcolm went out for food.”

The first bag is replaced by another and there’s a distinctive clink of glass. “And Johnnie Walker Blue.”

Jessica is kicking her feet down and walking over to the door, making a show of unlocking the broken door, and showing Trish in. “Let me get that for you.”

She relieves Trish of the whisky bottle and lets her struggle with the rest of it. She’s got the plastic off and the cap unscrewed before Trish sets down the food on her desk.

Jessica doesn’t need to turn around to know that Trish is woefully out of place in her office. From her hair, neat in a ponytail, to a coat that probably cost more than...well, everything in her office.

It would be almost artistic- if the place wasn’t crumbling around her. She feels the crunch of the pieces of broken glass she hasn’t swept up beneath her feet and Trish looks like she’s reconsidering taking her gloves off. Her internal battle must resolve itself because Trish carefully slides off her gloves and places them in the front right pocket of her coat.

“I figured you could use some greasy, salty food to soak up the whisky.” Trish says, somehow, without a hint of malice or judgement.

“Trish-” Jessica starts but stops herself as Trish turns away to carefully examine the giant hole in the wall. Trish looks back at her and tilts her head to the side before turning back to the hole. Jessica feels like nailing a sheet over the hole in a way that standing around in her destroyed apartment with Malcolm doesn’t prepare her for.

Trish deserves more than a run down apartment in Hell’s Kitchen that’s more office than living space on a good day and more rubble and broken pieces and filth most days. She deserves more than the chaos Jessica rains down on her life. More than Kilgrave--

\--touching, grabbing, kissing.

Jessica closes her eyes and lets the whisky burn as she pours it down her throat. The pain is familiar, expected, welcomed even. She heals fast, the burn won’t last enough to even bother her. But those images? She’s not found the bottom of a bottle yet that can take those away.

But like she does Trish has already insinuated herself onto the couch in her apartment the same way that she’s worked herself into every nook and cranny of Jessica’s life.

“You haven’t called.” Trish breaks the uncomfortable silence.

Jessica breathes in Trish’s hurt and bites out sarcastically. “You know where I live.” She leaves the food on the desk and sits down inelegantly next to Trish. She can hear her adoptive mother, that monster, telling her to sit up straight and roll her shoulders back. She takes another long pull of her drink.

It doesn’t make anything better.

Not too long after Jessica sits it becomes clear that Trish didn’t actually plan out what she wanted to get out of this visit. Sure she can feel Trish boring holes into the side of her head with her eyes, open and closing her mouth like she wants to speak, like she has something to say but she’s not sure what response she’ll get.

Jessica’s not the praying type but if a spontaneous sinkhole wanted to open up directly beneath her apartment at this very moment and swallow her whole she wouldn’t be entirely opposed.

Malcolm does her one better.

He reaches inside the hole in her front window, the window that Trish had made for her, fuck, barely missing the jagged glass and walks in with a pizza balanced on one arm and a bag hooked over the other arm.

“Jessica-” He stops and reads the room. His eyes drift over the rapidly cooling bag on the desk, over Trish worrying her hands in her lap, and Jessica pleading with her eyes over the bottle she’s barely been able to detach from her lips.

“Pizza?” Malcolm says uncertainly, moving into the kitchen to unload his haul. Jessica can hear him pacing a small, focused hole into her kitchen tile. His footsteps moving back and forth, she can only assume, trying to figure out how to fix this. He’s always trying to fix things or have her talk about her feelings.

Jessica really, really hopes he’s not stupid enough to try to open up the can of worms that is feelings talk right now. Another awkward minute passes, Trish open and closes her mouth a few more times, and just when it seems like sound is about to come out (and Jessica braces herself), Malcolm comes back out.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt.” Jessica snorts because she can see in his face he actually is sorry. Like she and Trish sitting on the couch in her fucked up apartment in silence is something Jessica can’t be torn away from.

Jessica holds her free hand open in front of her as if to say ‘get on with it’.

“We have a case.” Malcolm starts, his eyes looking up and to the left. Jessica barely restrains a groan. “An urgent case.”

“An urgent case?” Jessica plays along even though she can tell Trish doesn’t buy it and knows exactly what’s going on. She barely restrains the urge to stop this, to be honest with Trish in light of the truly resigned way Trish slips her gloves back on. The way she smooths her hands over her body as she stands up as if to engage the armor she needs to have around Jessica so that she can only hurt Trish as much as Trish allows her to.

Malcolm nods and darts his eyes between Jessica and Trish.

“I have to go anyway.” Trish says with a smile plastered on her face, fake as her eyes are hurting, pleading.

Jessica looks away.

She hears the soft creak of the door rubbing against the frame followed by the soft click of the door closing. Even though her apartment is a disaster zone, even though Jessica couldn’t give her whatever it was that Trish wanted from her, Trish still treats her things with the utmost respect. It almost makes Jessica want to follow her down the hall, bring her back, and talk about whatever it was that Trish needed to talk about.

But then she closes her eyes and all she can see is Kilgrave calling Trish over, ‘Patsy’ he’d called her because even as he threatened to do unspeakable things to Trish he didn’t know her. Not like Jessica did and yet, he knew enough, she gave away enough, that Trish was always in danger as long as Jessica kept her close.

Jessica doesn’t look into the hallway to see when Trish is gone, she can tell from the look in Malcolm’s eyes, the resigned ‘you’re fucking up everything’ look that seems to be his default towards her.

“I got pepperoni?” Malcolm says it like a question unasked, ‘do you want me to stay?’

She doesn’t ask him to stay but she doesn’t tell him to go either. He pulls a slice from the box, she can barely see him do it through the hole in her wall.

It’s progress.

*

Every once and again Trish used to get to have actual input on the topic of her show with her producers. That was before the interview with Hope, before she snapped on Kilgrave, before she let Simpson into her door and into her life and pushed him out again just as violently.

Now her day is filled with rock flautists and personal health gurus and nothing quite as deep as Trish knows she’s capable of. With what she’s seen, what she’s done, oh, the stories she could tell New York.

But instead she let’s the new age jazz cellist play for about five minutes while she stares into the glass, blankly past the head of her producer. Ever since that night on the docks she’s tried to shut her mind off. Tried to pour herself into the IGH files because maybe if she can crack that puzzle, give Jessica the answers she’s stopped searching for.

Maybe. Jessica.

Trish blinks once, slowly, just to clear her memory cache of being brushed off by Jessica. Not even, brushed off by Malcolm for Jessica while Jessica could barely look at her. She doesn’t blame her though, not really, after all, Trish can barely look at herself without seeing Kilgrave’s mouth on hers. Seeing herself kiss him like a movie she doesn’t remember making, a disgusting film she’d rather destroy than let anyone see.

Jessica saw though. Even through the thick haze of that moment Trish remembers the look on Jessica’s face.

Vacuous. Playing into Kilgrave’s sick weakness. But a glint in her eye, so small that Kilgrave in his gradeur and delusion couldn’t detect the deceit, not until his neck snapped and it was too late and Trish was free and--

“Fill the dead air.” Trish hears in her headset and she rushes to do her job. The show wraps up a few minutes later and Trish apologizes to her guest and her producers absentmindedly. She gathers her things and doesn’t stay to hear whether her apologies are acknowledged.

The usual fans wait for her in the lobby so she signs a few Patsy Walker comics quickly and closes her coat around herself tighter to guard against the breeze outside.

Usually she’d try to hail a taxi home because she lives close, sure, but not close enough that she wants to walk every day. Today though, she wants to feel the air against her face, wants to feel the freedom that comes with walking and clearing her head. She doesn’t want to risk a taxi driver recognizing her and forcing her to be Patsy.

Patsy.

She can still hear him say it in that vile voice of his as if she didn’t hate the name enough already.

Her home, her fortress, feels less and less so with every passing moment.

The electronic click of the door locking itself is a small reassurance as she closes it. It’s become second nature, in the last few weeks, to do a quick sweep of her apartment. Checking cupboards, looking under the bed, opening her closet, just to make sure there are no monsters waiting for her.

Or any other unwanted things.

The answering machine has another message from her mother, a few from work pitching some ideas for shows and Trish starts undressing as they play out. There’s a message from a private shooting range asking if she still wants to consider a membership with them. Her bag sits in the spot she leaves it, closed as always, as she shrugs off her heavy coat.

Everything is where it should be and Trish takes a few deep breaths, rolling her shoulders, trying to shake the feeling of disgust rising up her throat. It leaves for a minute or so.

Trish showers, changes and immerses herself in cooking. Her wet hair drips down the back of her shirt and she chops enough vegetables for two, though she has no intention of going back to Jessica’s place until she figures out what she wants to say to her. A meal for one.

The IGH files are still piled with her mother’s note on top of it, like to get inside those boxes she has to remind herself how she came to have them. No one would deny that she’s always been hard on herself. Even now when all she wants is for things to be easy. For things to fall into place.

And to go the way she wants them to.

Trish knows how to get a small burst of it. That victorious feeling of lifting something heavier than her, the sweat making her slip against the mats in her room and the blossoming bruises that she inspects from the floor.

Her trainer is used to her calls at odd hours, her requests for him to keep going, for perfection. Trish knows he must think a whole host of things about her that only disappear when she tosses him over her hip.

“Okay, okay.” He raises his hands in defeat while Trish pants, guard up. “I think we’re good for tonight.”

“Yeah.” Trish feels the disappointment set in. The adrenaline blocks the aches and pain that she’ll feel in the morning. Another long sleeved shirt, another scarf in the cold weather.

He goes about grabbing his striking mitts and equipment bag. Trish freezes up when he taps her shoulder.

“Have a good night, Trish.”

“Thanks.” The words are hard to say and she doesn’t relax until he’s gone. The lock securing again. Fortress once more.

One more day without incident.

*

Malcolm isn’t used to working her odd hours and despite his insistence that he’s more than just her secretary (which, she doesn’t remember hiring him) Jessica leaves the apartment with a case in hand and shoves him into his own apartment to catch up on sleep.

It seems almost strange to be doing something so normal as following suspected cheaters and taking their pictures for their wronged spouse. Like someone’s thrown her back in time and asked her to ignore the hell she’s endured.

At the same time, the normality helps. It reinforces the thoughts in her mind, her own free thoughts, that tell her over and over that she doesn’t have to look over her shoulder like she once did. That there’s nothing lurking in the darkness stronger than her and that she can’t face head on. Her mind is her own.

Click, click.

That’s a little bit scary to consider. She has autonomy. Choices. Potentially something to build towards.

Like a future and shit.

Jessica focuses her camera on the cheating husband in a polo shirt. He keeps running his fingers through his slicked back hair, scratching his beard and checking his watch. He sticks out like a sore thumb on the sidewalk. Which means so does she because she’s trying to be as invisible as she can watching him from across the road.

Jessica puts her camera down, pulling her scarf around her neck and leaning against the brick wall of the alley entrance.

Of course she has morning traffic, street vendors, and thousands of people walking all around her to blend her into the background, which helps.

She only has to stick around for a few more minutes before the cheating husband guarantees that she’ll make bank. After all, nothing says proof like shoving your tongue down another man’s throat. Jessica is sure that the wife isn’t expecting that.

The camera slips into the pocket of her leather jacket and she’s half-heartedly googling directions to the next place that will present her with some half decent chinese food when the engine of a Harley Davidson putters along with her heartbeat.

(She has to flip off a guy that curses her out for stopping so suddenly causing him to run into her but hey, immoveable object).

*

Trish pinches the bridge of her nose harder as the person on the other end of the phone continues not to take her seriously. “It’s not about fans, it’s about privacy and the fact that I’m paying someone to screen who goes into that elevator and they’re not doing their job-”

Her other hand is tapping a knife against a chopping board. Every sentence that doesn’t end with his apology for their incompetence has her cutting a deep indent into the board. It’s not a stretch to say she’s imagining it being her property manager’s face. That thought has her quickly putting the knife down.

“-do I have to buy the entire floor? Is that what it would take?” Trish pauses. “No, I’m being completely serious. This is-”

She only feels a little petty when she pulls the phone away from her ear, places it on the kitchen counter and glares it into submission. When she picks it up again, her property manager is still talking about the ethics of firing a doorman based on her complaints and not the complaints of every resident in her building.

“-absolutely ridiculous.” Trish cuts his reasons short, putting on her radio-voice and swiftly ending the conversation like she does to her more difficult interviewees. It won’t be the last he’ll hear of it though.

The phone bounces off one of the open IGH files she was reading. Phoning her property manager was her response to that latest in a long line of unwanted interruptions. This time a mostly harmless fan. Luckily she was only scanning through files of information but someone had managed to not only find out where she lived- but make it past all the safeguards she had in place to then appear at her door and knock.

There’s only so much she can do herself to fortify her apartment that doesn’t involve her keeping a weapon in every room. The safety checks alone are starting to wear on her mental state. Kilgrave around every corner of her mind.

His stubble against her skin (sometimes she wakes up scratching at her face until she can’t feel it) and the taste of his lips. (Trish can’t remember the last time she threw up this much since she and Jessica moved out of her mother’s house. Or maybe during withdrawal.)

And if she feels like this?

Trish can’t begin to think about how Jessica is feeling.

*

There’s a certain thrill that comes with counting money out onto a large empty desk and just watching it cover the entire surface.

“So, what are you going to do with your first paycheck from the new, improved Alias Investigations?” Malcolm smiles because Jessica looks mildly pleased with this situation. “Pay some rent? Fix up the front window? Take me out to lunch?”

Jessica sits back and sighs happily at the money. “I’m going to buy so much booze.”

Malcolm deflates. “Please tell me you’ll at least buy some food too.”

“Chunky peanut butter is back on the menu.” Jessica says.

“Little miracles.” Malcolm calls over his shoulder as he moves Jessica’s discarded leather jacket from one arm of the couch to the other. Jessica watches him through squinted eyes, almost amused. He calls this cleaning. It’s more like moving things from one place to another but it’s more than what she wants to do and it makes him feel better.

It’s a win/win where she’s concerned.

Malcolm walks into the kitchen and opens the fridge. The light doesn’t come on and the vague scent of rot drifts out. “You know this is broken right?”

“It’s still good storage.” Jessica shrugs, counting the money over again.

“Not for food that needs to be cold.” Malcolm closes the door, trapping in the remainder of the odor, and leans against the doorway. “Maybe set aside some appliance money?”

Jessica shrugs again and kicks away from the desk, a wad of cash in hand. As an afterthought she pulls four ten’s off the top and hands them to Malcolm.

Malcolm stands there for a moment with the money in his open palm, like he expects Jessica to change her mind and suddenly take some, or all, of the money back. When Jessica rolls the rest of the bills up and shoves the money in her pocket, he cautiously does the same.

Jessica pats his arm and then grabs her jacket, making sure to shake off the bits of wall dust that still cling to the couch. The hole goes through to her bedroom, to her unmade bed, and her phone. Malcolm watches her debate it before she stubbornly steps through the hole to get to her room.

When she comes back with her phone, Malcolm is at a standoff with some guys with toolboxes and a glass pane in their hand.

He looks at her. “Uh, they said-”

Jessica sighs and shoves her phone in her pocket. “Trish can’t leave it alone.” When the two workers look at her expectantly, she shrugs. “It’s- whatever.”

Malcolm stands back to let them in and Jessica takes her leave. “I hope she already paid you.” She shouts over her shoulder to them.

She’s off the clock. Officially not her problem.

*

Her producer looks at her sympathetically after a long hour of listening to people’s opinions on their main topics. As if proposed soda bans in New York are the most burning question in this day and age. Trish glides through her post-show responsibilities with ease and is thankfully crossing the marble floors of the radio building and out into the drizzly air of the city before she knows it.

It’s in her haste to pull her umbrella from under her arm that she accidentally bumps into a man trying to navigate his cane over the sidewalk.

“I’m so sorry.” Trish says, sincerely apologetic.

“No harm done.” He smiles and she can see small red scratches on his face, like he’d cut himself shaving. (Which was entirely possible considering the white cane.) “Enjoy the rest of your day.”

“You too.” Trish is already stepping away and opening her umbrella to shield herself from the rain. Her footsteps avoid tiny puddles and leave a sound trail of her heels hitting the sidewalk.

She changes directions every day when she walks, a habit she’s picked up after being followed home one too many times. Trish keeps looking over her shoulder every now and then and shaking her head when she finds nothing there. Every new detail and check she has to make- it’s starting to take it’s toll.

Things would be easier if she could face it head on. Finish it herself. Imagining it in her head only gets her so far. The dreams she has of Jessica snapping Kilgrave’s neck are her most comforting ones but when she wakes up in the dark, shaking, it’s her own hands that ache to be wrapped around his throat.

It’s on those nights that she forgoes sleep entirely and delves back into IGH’s medical files in the hope she’ll find something to put an end to all the questions the last few months have brought up. What exactly happened to Kilgrave? What experiments were his parents involved in? And where does Jessica fall into this?

She’s not exactly buying the little bit that she learned between Jessica and Alfred in the heat of the moment.

Trish’s memories of when Jessica first came home with her and her mother are a whirlwind of her own selfish teenage angst. Unjust huffing and stomping and physical fights with her mother. Stinging slaps and cuts that Jessica eyed with unfiltered concern every single time.

It was a broken sink and a whole lot of courage that got Trish past that. Selfish to selfless to letting someone else fight her battles until she was-

Until she was free. Until she was strong. Until she was the one making her own decisions, moving out and taking Jessica with her. Finding her feet in New York, like a duck to water, because she had someone to look out for and a way to do it that didn’t involve her fists. (That would come later).

And Jessica was always there. Trish can’t find a memory from college or her first job or the early months on the radio that don’t have Jessica cracking some comment in the background. Which makes the time Kilgrave had Jessica under his mind control like a literal hole in her life.

Trish avoids her new doorman’s eye as she walks to the elevator and pushes the button to call it down. Her umbrella drips on the floor.

Waking up to find Jessica gone that day had not been the worst day of her life. The days following after she’d searched every dive bar and haunt that Jessica had frequented, every job she’d been at for more than a minute, to find nothing had slowly driven her back to that line.

The elevator closes and leaves her standing alone.

The mental line that had been drawn the day she came out of rehab and swore that she was stronger than her addiction was never as thin as it was when finding Jessica started to become hopeless.

Trish opens her door and lets it lock behind her before she sets off checking her apartment. Her exhaustion from the day doesn’t hinder her and she manages to hold her darker thoughts at bay for the moment.

Everything is clear again. She can put her bag down and wash her face clean. She can revel in the aches in her shoulders and the heavy feeling in her chest.

Maybe it would have been better to have Jessica turn up dead than how she had returned to her damaged and traumatized and pushing Trish as far away as possibly could. Physically removing herself under the guise of not wanting to risk unloading her damage onto Trish.

Naturally it was when Jessica left of her own free will that Trish realized she couldn’t live without her.

The cruel irony of the universe rears its ugly head and Trish doesn’t even have to check her phone screen to know she’s not going to like what she hears. She checks the caller ID anyway in the less than one percent chance that it’s one of her producers or her mother. It’s Jessica.

“What do you need?” Trish rushes out, trying to keep the worry out of her voice. It’s not as though Jessica’s known to call just to chat.

The voice that greets her is familiar but not the one she was expecting. “It’s Jessica, I didn’t know who to call and I don’t have the money to-”

Trish sighs. “She needs bail?”

“Yeah.” Malcolm’s voice still holds the surprise and disappointment that Trish learned to let go a long time ago.

“Which precinct?” Trish is already walking back to her safe and putting in the combination and pulling out the cash that matches the amount Malcolm tells her. She lets him rattle off the information like this is the first time she’s done this. She lets him, she understands the need to talk through it and rationalize what it means to be a part of Jessica’s life. The good and the bad. “Do I need to call Jeri?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I don’t think Jessica is gonna press charges or-”

Trish almost smiles at the innocence of that while she grabs a warm coat and her umbrella again. “I meant more, is the guy she hit pressing charges?”

Malcolm pauses before answering. “I think we’re good.”

It feels good, normal, to be needed. “I’m on my way.”

*

Jessica lets Trish trail behind her, she vaguely acknowledges the rushed click of Trish’s heels but what’s having power for if you can’t avoid a dressing down every once in awhile.

There’s a split second when she reaches the end of the road that she has to decide which way she’s going. She looks left and remembers a dive bar she likes about ten blocks down. She looks right and Trish has finally caught up with her and pins her with a disappointed, yet expectant, look.

“I’m making fettuccine.” Trish tilts her head at Jessica like she really wants to demand that she comes with her. Maybe grab her by the arm and lead her the rest of the way to her apartment where it’s safe. But Jessica knows that Trish would never force her.

It’s why she agrees.  

It’s why she only feels a little bit guilty when she sneaks out while Trish is sleeping. It’s not like she hasn’t broken that promise before.

* *

“Would it kill you to stay the night?”

Jessica answers her phone while she waits for her coffee. While Trish has probably already inhaled enough caffeine to get through her day, Jessica is functioning just enough to make sure to walk out of the house fully clothed. “I’m honestly surprised you waited so long to call up and call me an asshole.”

“You know me.” Trish hides her annoyance well over the phone but Jessica can still hear it. “I’m a fountain of self restraint.”

Jessica plasters a fake smile to the boy who hands over her coffee. Her name is spelt horridly wrong on the side of it. She switches the phone from one ear to the other and pins it there with her shoulder and her cheek. “Look, Trish, can we do this later or something? I’m sort of busy right now.”

Trish sighs into the speaker but doesn’t say anything.

“It’s not that I don’t love our back and forth. I mess up. You get to shout. It’s great for everyone. I’m just a bit-” Jessica sets her cup down and grabs a handful of sugar packets. She rips one hastily with her teeth and the packet of sugar empties all over her hand by accident. “Buried with work.”

“Don’t make me the bad guy.”

“Who said anything about bad guys?” Jessica shakes her hand away from the cup but the sugar is clinging to her wool gloves.

“Look, just- give me a heads up next time.” Trish sounds exasperated. “I’m used to it by now but it doesn’t stop me from worrying. And Jess?”

Jessica pushes through the door with her shoulder and squints at the early morning sunshine.

“I’m sick of worrying about you.”

It’s sappy and it makes her roll her eyes and want to seek cover from the harsh way she’ll probably end the call. The heel of her boot grinds into the sidewalk when she turns around and right into the sight line of Luke sitting on his bike, helmet resting on his lap with a hesitant look on his face.

“Yeah,” Jessica deadpans. “Me too.”

*

Her eyes feel like they’re burning from forcing them open even past the point of exhaustion. But she’s always been like a dog with a bone when it comes to information. When it’s information about Jessica? She’s tireless.

Even if her body disagrees with her mind about that one.

Trish feels like she’s close to something. Her mother sent over more files with a passive aggressive note to come visit her sometime taped to the top. Trish ripped up the note but kept the boxes.

It’s 2am and she’s on call at the station at 5am but she’s reading around the black redacted lines and putting the pieces together.

IGH. For all she’s learned about them, their tests and their experiments, she still doesn’t even know what IGH stands for. If it stands for anything. But what she does know sends chills down her spine.

She’s met the Avengers, hell, she went on a date with Steve Rogers (nice guy, maybe too nice, certainly wrong for her). She knows that money and power sometimes mix to create a cocktail of shit that nature and the universe never meant to have created.

She’s ingested the red pill that, for lack of better analogy, made her feel like Steve and Jessica must feel every day of their lives since he became the first functional Super Soldier and Jessica became...whatever she did. But for every scientific good there’s always a dark side.

Simpson. Dr. Kolarov. IGH.

The red pill had almost killed her. For a few seconds she was just a little bit dead. But that’s nothing compared to what she imagines IGH has done to people who walk around, looking just like everyone else, but tinged with something powerful, something just a little bit out of control.

Vaguely she remembers Simpson explaining the complicated combination of pills that brought him up and the cocktail that brought him back down to earth so his lungs didn’t constrict onto themselves. But what if that’s not all IGH cooked up?

Jessica was in a coma for weeks after the accident that killed her family. Trish has seen Dr. Kolarov move seamlessly in, out, and all around hospitals like he owns the place. Like he has license to be there even though he’s not on the payroll.

Maybe she’d been too wrapped up in her own angst to see anything changed with Jessica. From what she’s finding in these files it’s becoming more and more possible that Jessica’s powers didn’t come from the accident at all.

At least not directly.

Her eyes shut of their own volition and she feels a deep pang in her stomach that alerts her to the fact that she had a small lunch, a salad, and skipped dinner altogether in the pursuit of answers. If she doesn’t get some sleep now she’ll barely be able to get through the day.

But she’s almost there, she’s so fucking close and she knows it.

She just needs a little sleep first.

*

The blinds are only half successful in keeping the light out but considering it’s one of the more intact things in her apartment, Jessica can’t really complain. Luke’s body manages to block out a lot of the sun anyway when he’s lying on his side.

His eyes are closed but Jessica knows he’s not asleep. Just faking, probably for the same reason she keeps looking at him to check he’s still there, that he’s not in the same shape he was in the last time they were in bed together.

A bullet usually shows how easily everyone can be taken down but in Luke’s case it’s also showing her how people can still make it through, no matter the circumstances.

It’s nice to have a bit of optimism. Even if it’s not really her thing.

Although a ‘glass half full’ attitude no doubt contributed a lot to what they spent all night doing.

Jessica turns over and looks up at the ceiling with a sigh. That promise she’d made to him about not being in the way to ruin his life anymore was one hundred percent broken and that bothers her more than most of her other broken promises. He doesn’t deserve this kind of mess on top of everything she’s put him through. Directly or not.

She didn’t think it would be this hard to let him go.

This wonderful train of thought is rudely but thankfully interrupted by someone banging loudly on the door. It’s when the noise isn’t followed up by keys turning that Jessica realizes it’s not Malcolm trying to turn up for work.  

“Shit.” Jessica covers her eyes with her forearm. “You gotta go.”

Luke stops faking immediately and sits up. “You got a case?”

Jessica rolls out of bed and checks her phone. Nothing. She pays no attention to Luke watching her as she gets dressed, pulling on the same jeans from yesterday and a tank top that smells better than the one on the floor.

Peeking through the hole in the wall she can see a couple of people standing at the door through the window. Their heads shaped like hard hats. “Shit.”

Luke takes his time pulling on his boxers and finding his shirt. Their conversation last night had been long and hard. And that was before the sex.

They still have a ways to go but it’s not going to happen this morning.

Jessica endures more knocking and Luke speeds up. He fishes his keys from under her bed and picks up his helmet. “I’d ask if you wanted to get breakfast but I know you’re on a liquid only diet.”

That’s his way of letting her know that there’s nothing that needs rushing. Wounds need to heal and everything.

“I knew I kept you around for a reason.” The knocking gets louder. “Give me a second! Fuckers.”

Luke looks over the top of her head to hide his amusement. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“That’s the best part.” Jessica smirks over her discomfort for the obvious affection he’s showing. It’s not unwelcome, it’s just not needed. They’re not back to being those kind of people yet. If they ever were.

He takes his leave and opens the door for her, having to push past three or four men all wearing grey overalls and carrying tools and what looks like a large piece of drywall, to get through. Jessica blocks their entrance with her arm before they can come in.

The closest man looks from her to what he can see of what awaits him inside the apartment with a nervous smile. “I got a call about some repairs?”

“I didn’t call anyone.” She stares at him oblivious to his discomfort.

“Something about a couple of holes in your walls-”

Jessica says nothing.

“This is Alias Investigations right?”

Again, Jessica waits.

“Everything has already been paid for, we’ve just been told to-”

The guy next to him fishes out a clipboard and points to a name on it. “Signed off on by someone named Trish Walker?”

Fucking figures.

*

The smell of stale hairspray makes her stomach lurch and almost sends her into an anxious moment. Trish takes a deep breath and steps around young girls dressed older than their age and parents coaching them to say their lines just so. One or two parents look at her as she walks by and she can feel the hairs prickle on the back of her neck. It’s the feeling she gets when she’s recognized in a place where she wants to be anonymous and it makes her walk faster.

Her mother comes out of her office looking down at a clipboard. She reads out a name and looks up for the response. Instead she locks eyes with Trish and casts a neutral expression on her face. The little girl walks up to her mother but Trish’s mother shakes her head and turns the girl away.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to wait a little bit longer.” She opens the door to her offices and expects Trish to follow. “My daughter has come to visit me.”

Trish barely restrains herself from rolling her eyes into the back of her skull. She takes a deep breath and remembers that she’s here for Jessica, not for her mother.

“You look like you’ve been eating well.” Her mother says as she sits down and Trish hovers in the doorway and tries not to flash back to her mother forcing her to put her own fingers down her throat because she decided she wanted to be normal and eat a slice of cake.

“I need everything else that you have on IGH.” Trish cuts straight to the point. The sooner she can leave the better.

“Keep your voice down.” Her mother bites out from between pursed lips.

“Have you given me everything you have?” Trish pushes.

“I have.” Her mother says smugly. “Not that you’ve been thankful for any of it.”

“You have to know more.” Trish doesn’t rise to her mother’s bait. She can’t. “You adopted Jessica. What happened to her before we took her home?”

“I gave you the files, Patricia. And you can’t even come into my office and act civil.” She tuts. “Well, you never did know how to act.”

Trish knows this game, she knows not to rise to her mother's words. “Did they perform tests on her? Any procedures that didn’t have medical necessity?”

Something, some emotion that Trish can’t describe flashes across her mother’s face and just as quickly as it was there it’s gone again. “If you’re not here to have a relationship with me then I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

A light comes on in Trish’s brain. Her mother knows but she’s scared. It’s an interesting experience to see her mother, the woman who scares her more than anyone (more than even Kilgrave) look like she’s afraid of something.

“I’m close, aren’t I?” Trish tries to tamp down the smug feeling in her chest. She can figure this out, she can figure Jessica out, then maybe, just maybe.

Her mother doesn’t say anything, just stands up from her desk and opens the door again. The cacophony of sounds that were blocked out by the door wash right back over her. Lines and children screaming that they don’t want to be there or do want to be there, hungry, thirsty, tired. It’s too much.

Trish leaves without a single look back at her mother. She won’t give her the satisfaction.

She’s so close to being able to tell Jessica the truth about her powers. One puzzle piece away.

*

She’s never really wondered where her accelerated healing comes from. It’s always been a given since the car accident and something she’s come to rely on after one too many beatings.

Claire Temple is, however, considerably more interested in it and less interested in the bullshit she starts spewing when the curtain closes behind them in the emergency room at Metro Gen.

Claire sighs at the clipboard and the words on it. Doctors are a little busier in this part of town and Jessica doesn’t blame Claire for sweeping in and taking her off the poor soul’s hands. Especially since she’s often more trouble than she’s worth.

“I knew you liked me.” Jessica scoffs. It comes out as more of a slur and she’s pretty sure that Claire mutters something like ‘oh boy’ under her breath before pulling a sterile tray and tweezers over.

“I knew I should have drawn the line after seeing you with your pants down.” Claire holds out her hand. “This is gonna hurt.”

Jessica presents her fist, still bleeding with tiny pieces of crushed glass in her knuckles, for inspection.

“Yeah well, what’s the saying?” Jessica watches Claire start methodically taking the glass out of the wound. “You should see the other guy.”

Starting a bar fight with her is never the best idea. Especially over a matter of drinks. Especially if you turn around and call her a ‘fucking bitch’ because she doesn’t want to play ball. And being drunk really doesn’t help her hair trigger patience.

It felt good to break someone’s skin. Even holding back she’d managed a couple of minutes before his buddies had come over and then things got a bit more bloody.

But hey, at least everyone picked a fight with her by choice. That’s something.

“What’s the verdict?” Jessica asks afterwards. “You gonna have to chop it off?”

Claire laughs before wrapping blood stained gauze and used materials in her gloves and throwing them in the trash. “I think you’ll make it. Those stitches will come out in a few days, probably faster for you, and I would ask you to not end up in here again but-”

Jessica shrugs. “I’m sure you’ve had that conversation before.”

“You have no idea.” Claire hands her back her jacket and that’s the end of that. “I’ll just go and-”

The blue curtain rips open with so much force that Jessica is sure a part of it has ripped off. Trish towers over Claire in the navy heels she’s wearing. There’s a worried storm in her eyes that doesn’t settle when her gaze lands on Jessica.

“Hi.” Claire breaks the ice.

Oh yeah, they haven’t met.

Trish looks over her and Jessica stubbornly holds her gaze because looking down isn’t her thing and she knows that look.

“Hi.”

For a second, Jessica’s chest deflates. All she needs is Malcolm to show up and this will end up as a meeting of people that are probably too good to be in her life. She’d add Luke to that group as well but they’re both as bad for each other and happy to keep ruining each other.

Trish though. She can’t keep ruining her.

“I’ll just go and sign you out.” Claire says, before making a hasty retreat. Probably glad to be out of the way of their tension.

Trish waits until Claire has gone to shut the curtains back and covering them from the rest of the view.

She can see it bubbling. The rage and the hurt. Trish reads like an open book and Jessica is used to being on the end of the disappointment that takes over.

“I handled it.”

“This doesn’t look like you handling anything.” Trish points to her messed up hand. “What am I supposed to do, Jessica? How many more times am I going to get called to pick you up from the hospital? From the police station?”

“No one is asking you to-”

“Who else will?”

“I don’t need anyone to take responsibility for me.”

“You’ve made that perfectly clear.” Trish replies sarcastically before her face softens. “What happened?”

“Some asshole took a swing.” Trish looks down at her hand. Jessica flexes her fingers and they sting. “Four on one.”

“And was there a reason you thought it was a good idea to spend the afternoon drinking until someone picked a fight?” Trish crosses her arms over her chest.

Jessica bites the inside of her cheek and focuses on the awful paint speckled walls that all hospitals seem to have in various differing colours. She really doesn’t want to bring up the fact she slept with Luke. Especially not to Trish.

“Or is this just something I have to get used to again?”

“You don’t have to get used to anything. I don’t need you to come and bail me out or patch me up. I can take care of myself.” Jessica says pointedly. Trish uncrosses her arms.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jessica backtracks. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Funny because it sounds like you’ve been hanging onto that one for a while.” Trish clenches her fists by her side. “Did you decide this before or after I walked into a station full of cops pointing their guns at me? Or was it back when I was trying to put a bullet in my head?”

“Or are we just choosing to forget the fact I kicked Simpson’s ass-”

“And then you stopped breathing.” Jessica bites back. She’s sure the whole ward heard that one. Trish flinches. “You almost died and I would have lost you because you felt like you needed to go the extra fucking mile.”

“So, only you get to do that?” Trish bares her teeth. “Just because I don’t have strength like you, doesn’t mean that I can’t fight for myself. It doesn’t mean I can’t make sacrifices-”

“No. It just means putting a bigger target on your back.” Jessica stands up now. “When will you actually realize that everything you’re doing-”

“That I’m doing?”

“I told you I was a risk to you.” Jessica says. “I told you to stay away.”

“You’d be dead if I stayed away.” Trish counters and truthfully it hurts.

“I can’t see you like you were after Simpson. I can’t fucking sleep without thinking about Kilgrave taking you and dangling what he was going to do to you in front of my face.” Jessica says angrily. “I’m not always going to be here Trish and what happens when the next big bad comes along and realizes-”

“Realizes what?” Trish asks. “That there’s one sure way to get your attention and it probably ends with me dead.”

Jessica swallows. “I can’t do this.”

Jessica steps past her, fingers touching the curtain when Trish’s hand wraps around her bicep. “Stop, please.”

“What do you want, Trish?” Jessica looks up at her, searching. “This is my life.”

“Don’t push me away.” Trish pleads. “Let me help.”

Kilgrave called her ‘Patsy’ and every step Trish took towards him when he called still haunts her. Who will replace him in her nightmares?

“I can’t do that.” Jessica hammers home the words and Trish releases her. A cold chill follows.  

“I’m not some china doll that’s going to break if you touch me.” Trish furiously whispers, not wanting to raise her voice so much to break through the thin curtain separating them from the rest of the ward’s eavesdropping.

“Is that what this is about?” Jessica spits out quickly. “About not wanting me to save you?”

“You don’t see it.” Trish’s whisper is getting more and more desperate. “What will it take, Jess?”

What will it take for her to stop seeing Kilgrave kissing her? What will it take to get rid of the sickness that follows the idea of Trish being taken from her and forced against her will into everything Jessica once was? What will it take for Trish to realize how close she was to that life? To never being free?

And yet Trish is still there despite it all. Willing and wanting to stick her hands into the grime of the city and come up with her fists raised. All for her.

This isn’t her fight. This isn’t the road that she wants Trish to follow her down. Jessica wants things to return to their once comfortable relationship. To Jessica keeping odd hours and Trish being satisfied without patterning her skin with bruises. To sparse visits and Jessica rolling her eyes at the posters and billboards all over town.

It’ll never go back. It’ll never settle as long as Trish feels like she has to follow Jessica into hell just to watch her back. That’s never the way this was meant to be. The defender being defended.

And the end of all the mindless reasons and the petty excuses, comes a simple, hard to swallow sometimes, truth. That Trish means too much to her for Jessica to have to bury her.

“What will it take for you to stop?” Jessica asks.

The question lingers in the air and Trish considers it. Her expression changes from anger to sadness as she realizes the only thing she can ask is for Jessica to stop as well. But she’s tried that before. The superhero gig that she trialed. The jobs she attempted and failed. Stopping got her caught in a web and the only thing Jessica can do is keep going.

To protect everyone around her.

Jessica drops her voice to an honest whisper and says the only thing that might get Trish to admit defeat. “I love you.”

God, it’s a low blow. She knows it the second she says it because this is not something she does. It’s not something she admits and Trish knows it.

“Don’t do that.” Trish stops her. Voice trembling. Jessica waits. “Put me on a pedestal. Pretend you don’t need my help or talk around how you think I’m not strong enough for all of this but don’t-”

Trish swallows and Jessica can see her holding back tears. “Don’t lie to me just to make me feel better.”

The denial gets stuck on her tongue because every word is tainted to Trish now and does she really need to make it worse?

Claire comes back when she can no longer stand outside pretending she can’t hear them anymore and the silence becomes too much. She has a prescription in her hand and a wary smile on her face as she looks between them.

The spell is broken and whatever Trish had hoped to get from her, or hoped to convince her of, has failed. Jessica watches her leave without looking back.

“Are you okay?” Claire asks sincerely. Another person too good to fall into her sticky web.

Jessica takes the prescription and sighs.

Honestly, she didn’t mean to fuck this up.

*

Trish is trying to hold it together, at least until she gets into the privacy of her own home and then she can even begin to try and process what’s just happened. She can feel something, not quite sadness, but not quite anything else she’s ever felt before sit like a stone in her stomach.

She steadies her hands on the ends of the scarf around her neck and uses that movement to ground her to something other than vacuous feeling she’s left with. Someone places a hand on her shoulder and Trish whips around to see, her fist halfheartedly cocked back because as much as she wishes it was Jessica she would know if it was.

It’s the nurse from Jessica’s room. Trish doesn’t know her name and for all she knows she’s another person like Luke, hidden away but more important to Jessica than Trish will be able to accept without a heavy heart.

“I’m sorry.” The nurse holds up her hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I should know better than to sneak up on people by now.” She pauses and her smile makes Trish feel like she knows her well. “I’m Claire.”

“Trish.” She offers a small wave, the fist turned into an open palm. “I’m sorry about back there, I--I don’t know what I expected.”

Claire shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it. The ER has seen worse.”

“I-” Trish pauses and steels herself against the weight of what she’s about to ask this stranger. “I overheard you talking to Jessica. Can you do me a favor?”

Claire motions for her to continue.

“Make sure she doesn’t get in too much trouble.” Trish finally breathes out, one breath, like it would be too much to dwell on any one of those thoughts.

“I can’t guarantee that.” Trish wasn’t aware she’d even breathed in her expectancy but at once she deflates. Of course, it’s too much to ask of a stranger. Claire notices her sharp mood change and rushes out her words. “I don’t think she knows how to stay out of trouble. But, I can make sure to patch her up when she does. It’s the best I can offer.”

Trish nods and allows herself a small, tight smile. “That’ll do.”

The walk home is lonely. Trish had imagined a different walk, one where Jessica was coming with her, under better circumstances.

Of all the things Jessica could have said, Trish really hadn’t prepared for hearing her say ‘I love you’ again. Not under the lights of a hospital ward, not away from the docks and from the grip of mind control.

Guiltily she holds the sound of those words close to her chest the whole way home. As if the conversation before and after them hadn’t occurred.

Selfishness, after all, is something she’s very familiar with.

Her doorman is missing when she arrives and she’s too wrapped up in her thoughts to stop and berate him about it. Everyone needs a second in their day to escape the world. That’s all she’s wishing for right now.

Trish unwinds her scarf as the elevator takes her up. Remembering to breathe has her counting the seconds until she reaches her floor. She can only hope that the rest of her night will be as uneventful as possible.

The hallways are empty when she steps out but her door is open.

Her heart jumps up, beating a mile a minute and Trish grits her teeth, the blood rushing to her head and away from her knuckles. Something has her dropping her scarf to the floor, kicking of her heels and reaching into her bag for the gun tucked away there still.

That’s when she spots the tiny flecks of blood, hastily scrubbed, just littered outside her apartment door.

She enters with the gun raised. Her hand doesn’t shake.

The lights are on and her path to her living room is clear as she forgoes her checks, training her gun with the movement of her line of sight.

But she recognizes the face that she sees flanked by two men dressed in black combat gear, recognizes him from dragging Simpson kicking and screaming and begging for him in the hospital. Recognizes danger.

“Patricia Walker.” Dr Kolarov says calmly, like she’s not pointing a gun at him. “I hear you have a few questions.”

*

Malcolm walks behind her out of the elevator just to make sure she’s actually going to go into her apartment. It wouldn’t be out of character for her to wait until he was gone and do a U-turn to the nearest bar. Luke had left at the front door, passed her over almost, into Malcolm’s hands. It would have been too easy for her to ask him to come up but after everything at the hospital she feels like burying herself in her bed under a haze of blankets and whiskey.

And she doesn’t need a partner for that.

Malcolm says goodnight and she shuts the door behind her. The lights in her apartment are off but the second she turns away from the door she knows someone has been inside.

Her hands ball up into tight fists, much to the displeasure of her fresh hand wound, and Jessica silently moves room to room checking the place out. It takes her longer now that she’s unable to just glance through a hole in the wall. (The workers did a good job patching the place up).

When nothing comes up Jessica switches on the main light in her office, illuminating everything.

It hits her then that everything in her apartment is clean. The walls are fixed and there are rolls of wallpaper in the corner waiting to be finished up. The dirt on the floor is gone, her steps are quiet because there isn’t any glass left to tread on and her desk is tidy.

All the knick-knacks have been organised and her bookshelf has been replaced. Jessica steps back to look into her kitchen and notices the newly working fridge.

This didn’t happen overnight. This was weeks and weeks of planning, of Jessica leaving and not noticing how things were being rebuilt around her. This is the iron will and Trish never giving up on her. This is her finally getting her head out of her ass and taking note.

And that new found attention span spots the brown file sitting on top of her laptop. IGH printed in the center.

Jessica has half a mind to toss the damn thing across the room.

The other half pulls out her desk chair and sinks into it.

She is feeling peak asshole today and throwing away whatever it was that led Trish to break into her apartment and leave this here is not on her agenda. Not after the scene at the hospital.

Jessica debates turning the page over but waits until she’s pulled out a half empty bottle of whisky from her drawer and downed as much as she can in a mouthful before returning to it.

The burn is still present when she spots her name the first time, the third, the sixteenth, the twenty first- and on and on and on.

Numbers, countless numbers.

And a doctor whose name she’s never seen before that conjures a picture in her mind of someone that makes her flinch.

What has Trish done?

Jessica is still reading while she texts Trish. Her messages go unreplied for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes and it’s one thing to be mad at her but another to ignore her outright.

She’s torn through everything, bile rising up in her throat at the very end when it all starts to make sense when she finally calls Trish.

What did they do to her? She was a child- everything that happened, all of this could have been avoided.

Jessica stalls at the end of the page and the silence becomes uncomfortable.

*

_The number you have called is no longer in service._

*

****  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is a one shot piece with a cliffhanger ending. There are no planned or unplanned sequels to this story.


End file.
